


We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun

by savvyliterate



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Doctor Who Christmas Special, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5341784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvyliterate/pseuds/savvyliterate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the not-so-distant past, River Song had stood on a snowy corner in an English village and watched as the shock registered on the Doctor's face as he drank her in, as if he hadn’t seen her for a thousand years. Now he stared at her with a half-besotted, half-exasperated look, as if he still didn’t quite know what to do with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is almost surely going to be jossed (moffated?) by the Christmas special in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to go ahead and finish it. For River and the Doctor it's after the supposed events of "The Husbands of River Song." However, in this fic, "The Angels Take Manhattan" takes place for River after THORS instead of before like Moffat said it would. There's no hard spoilers for the Christmas special other than what's been released in promo materials.
> 
> Thanks to Beverly and Sarah, who never got a chance to read it but made me finish it anyhow.

Usually the words came with a startling ease. This particular body of hers had always been prolific. Whether it was scribbling in her diary or writing an archaeological treatise, she could set pen to paper and the words flew.

But nothing she did was making the words flow this time. She tried quill and ink, hot type and press, tablet and stone. She poked at typewriters from three eras of human history and two worlds and stole a device that literally transcribed the thoughts from your mind. She made cup after cup of tea, immersed herself in book after book. She slipped through the halls of her home like a ghost, determined to avoid the only other occupant, and yet the words still didn’t come.

 River Song stared at the words “Melody Malone” in neat Courier lettering before her and wanted to sob.

But she refused give into fits of crying and hated melancholy. She ushered the Doctor out of the TARDIS on an emergency Jammie Dodger run, then she stole control of the TARDIS and navigated it to a place of solitude.

Trafaxia had immense forests with leaves that were every shade of purple in the universe. Some said it was the planetary equivalent of a night sky, but River thought nothing could match the stars. It was beautiful though, and unsettled at this particular point in history. She landed the TARDIS on one of the most picturesque peaks, turned it invisible, and carried her mug of tea outside. She settled herself on the edge of the cliff, legs dangling over as she did her very best to admire the view and to settle her mind. Instead, she found herself gazing into her tea and fought a losing battle with tears.

Her time senses picked up the disturbance seconds before the wheeze-groan of TARDIS breaks echoed through the area. She squeezed her eyes shut and drew upon every bit of inner strength she possessed to manage a straight face. She would smile. She would be pleasant, flirtatious, and deal with whatever version of her husband came sauntering out of the TARDIS. Then she would run away and find somewhere else to grieve.

“Your face is entirely too squinty, and you look like a Sontaran with a hair problem,” a Scottish burr intoned behind her. “The look’s not becoming, wife." 

River whipped around, tears and sadness forgotten as she stared at the grey-haired man standing in the TARDIS doorway. Tall with wiry, grey curls framing a weathered face and blue eyes. He stood with his feet apart, hands behind him as he gave her an arch stare. Something uncurled inside her as she set her mug down. He shook his head, motioning her to remain sitting as he loped to her side and took the space next to her.

In the not-so-distant past, she had stood on a snowy corner in an English village and watched as the shock registered on his face as he drank her in, as if he hadn’t seen her for a thousand years. Now he stared at her with a half-besotted, half-exasperated look, as if he still didn’t quite know what to do with her.

He picked up her tea, sampled it, then flung the mug over the side of the cliff. “Too cold,” he pronounced.

 “You could had disposed of the tea and kept the mug, sweetie,” River pointed out.

“Too cold,” he repeated, and she shook her head with exasperation of her own.

“What brings you out here, Doctor?” River idly checked to make sure the blaster she always carried was in the small of her back. Wherever him indoors went, so did a host of trouble.

“Nothing you need your blaster and two knives for unless you’re planning to shoot me, Professor,” he replied.

“No diaries?” she gently scolded.

He gave a dismissive wave. “I know when you are. And you, wife, are late with your manuscript.” 

River wished she still had her mug so she could chuck it at her husband’s head. “You’re not my keeper. You didn’t show any interest in it anyhow.” 

He shrugged. “If I apologized for everything Bow Tie did, we’d be here for the next millennia. My job is to make you write that book.” 

“Your job? Am I suddenly your pet project? What if I don’t? Time would be rewritten,” she said, the last in a singsong taunt.

He scowled. “Don’t go playing that game with me, River Song.”

River rolled her eyes, fingers flexing in her lap. “As if I would endanger our timelines that way!”

“Didn’t stop you before.”

Her slap echoed through the area, ringing through the sky like a bell. She jerked her hand back and took several deep breaths. She really, _really_ needed to stop slapping him. So she started to roll to her feet, but he grabbed her arm.

“Do it again,” he ordered.

River tried to jerk away, but he held on fast. “Doctor, I’m not in the mood for sex games.”

“No,” he hissed, low and intense. Those blue eyes bore into hers, seeing straight into her soul. “Hit me again. Hit me the way you wanted to when we left Manhattan. When I was too stupid, too self-absorbed to see what you were really doing. Hit me like when we were sitting on their stairs. Did you know,” he continued, more to himself than to her, “you were like a wooden doll those first few weeks? Haven’t you felt anything since then?”

“Of course I have,” River shot back instinctively, then drew up short. She saw the truth in the Doctor’s eyes and felt it reverberate through her soul. She’d felt something – a heavy numbness that weighed her limbs and her brain. She’d navigated through the fog of regrets, of guilt, of helplessness. She took two steadying breaths and pulled her hand away.

“Liar,” he hissed.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she informed him. “Let your younger self grovel to me.”

“Too bad. I’m what you’ve got,” he replied. “A grumpy old Scot with too much time on his hands and a perchance to go meddling. You going to trade me in for a newer model?”

“Yes, a ginger one,” River shot back, and the Doctor glared at her.

“That’s just rude,” he snarled, looking so offended that she began to laugh. It was the most absurd thing, and nothing really to laugh about. But once she started, she couldn’t stop. She laughed and laughed, wave after wave of uncontrollable, hysterical laughter that turned into sobs. Appalled, she tried to stop crying. She dragged her hands over her face and willed every ounce of hard-won self-control to stop bloody crying.

Beside her, the Doctor frowned. He reached a hesitant hand toward her, awkwardly patting vaguely in the direction of her back before sighing with resignation. He pulled her into his arms and stroked her back as she cried all over his jacket. The movements became less rusty and more natural as he murmured something she couldn’t decipher into her hair. As the storm passed, she focused on her breathing until there was silence. Silence, other than the soft whoosh of her breath and his as they mingled together.

“You’re still here,” she murmured with some surprise.

“I’m always here to you,” he replied, and she looked him to see a faraway look in those blue eyes. “You can always see me, and I can always see you. Remember that one day, River.”

She ran a thumb across his cheek, tracing the deep lines grooved into weathered skin. She suspected during their chase across the galaxy that this Doctor had seen her death.  She hated that look in his eyes, so she gently nudged his face until he was looking down at her. She pressed her lips to his, closing her eyes as they kissed. He gathered her closer, exploring her mouth like it was some sort of ancient treasure.

When he finally pulled away, he pressed his lips to her forehead and smiled. “Better?”

If anything, she felt like she’d been flung off a building into the TARDIS pool, then wrung out to dry. But beneath the exhaustion, she felt something bloom deep inside her. The first stirrings of her sex drive in weeks. The desire to get up and do something, not just walk aimlessly through a fog. The will to _live_ and to drag her husband along with her as she did so.

“I think I’ll manage,” she replied, and the Doctor nodded in satisfaction.

“You’ll do, River Song,” he said. “Now, off with you. I'll go with you, if you want. I’ll even edit the bloody manuscript.”

“You’ll do no such thing, old man,” she teased as he got to his feet and helped him up.

“I’ll have you know I edited for Ernest Hemingway.”

“Yes, and I had to _fix_ that editing, thank you very much.”

“ _Old Scot and the Sea_ was a far better title than the generic one he assigned.”

“And I suppose you were the inspiration for Santiago.”

“I _was_ Santiago, thank you wife. At least it was better than you persuading him to name his previous book after you.”

They reached the TARDIS that belonged to Bow Tie, and she laid her hand on the door. “My love, not every book with the word “river” in the title was named for me.”

He arched one of those impressive eyebrows of his, looking almost intimidating. “You’ll pardon me if I don’t believe you.”

“Cheeky,” she tossed back, pleased that they were settling back into their familiar back-and-forth. If she could do it with her grumpy Scot, then falling back into that same rhythm with her bow-tied Doctor would be even easier.

He caught up her hand in his, thumb absently rubbing over the fourth finger on her left hand. “You know, wife,” he said absently, “I was really fond of our 35th honeymoon.”

She winged an eyebrow of her own. “I could have sworn we’ve only been on 34.”

“Well, then. You have some catching up to do, don’t you?” He leaned into her, his breath tickling her curls over her ear. “I was especially fond of the ring ceremony we wound up in beforehand.”

Her gaze flitted to the wedding band tucked beneath the signet ring on his left hand. “I see,” she murmured. “I’ll have to make sure it’s a good one.” She pushed TARDIS’ door open behind her, warm light and an orange-yellow glow spilling from the console room. “You know,” she purred, lightly dancing her hand up his arm. “I have a marvelous idea.”

“And that is?” He swayed closer into her personal space until they were pressed hip to hip as he pushed her into the doorframe.

“How do you feel about defiling your old desktop?”

His reply was to boost her up until her legs locked around his waist. She felt him, hard and eager, through the wool of his trousers and every nerve ending in her body shook off the rest of the lethargy that she’d born through weeks of grief. “Feeling up to things now, are you?” he commented.

“Oh, I think I can muster a spark or two of interest,” she replied, trailing her fingers down the back of his neck. “I seem to recall that I need to test drive this body a bit further.”

 “I believe I can rise to the occasion,” he said with a smirk, and she laughed as he carried her into his old console room.


End file.
